A legitimate kidnapping for hire service

France-based Ultime Realite specializes in mock-up “thrill” situations, such as kidnapping and drug-running.

And the Yellow Pages wonder why they’re going out of style: they just never have the listings for the help you really need.

Sure enough, skimming the “K” section came up with nothing when searching for a good kidnapping-for-hire service (yes, I also checked false imprisonment), so I did what any rational hopeful kidnapee would do: googled it.

The most popular and credible (read: most accented letters) option seemed to be Ultíme Réalité, a French company (so you know it’s legit) which offers a chance to “feel the rush, the thrill and the fear of a real kidnapping; feel and understand the psychological shock of victims; and grow the reality of kidnapping as you wish by integrating into a larger-than-life scenario.”

After sending them a check (or wiring them money through a Swiss account while hiding in an abandoned missile silo), they’ll give you a few days to forget that you just paid someone to kidnap you, and they’ll turn up when you least expect–probably while you’re watching CSI–with enough ropes, gags, and blindfolds to make this kidnapping truly Facebook Album-worthy.

Here’s the genius behind their business model: expanding horizontally across the WTF services sector. Since a mock kidnapping experience is really just a gateway pseudo-crime, Ultíme Réalité offer three additional adventures for those who refuse to believe that Jason Statham is not an actor: the ‘Manhunt’ (becoming predator or prey in a cat-and-mouse game), the ‘Go-Fast Adventure’ (drug-running on a speedboat down the Seine), and ‘Extreme’ (something involving waking up in a morgue on an autopsy table).

I must say I am a bit offended here Jason. I’m all for giving the “new kid on the block” press and publicity, cheers to Ultíme Réalité, but to refer to us as “low budget kidnappers” is either due to ignorance or bias. Which is it? Extreme Kidnapping PIONEERED the ‘kidnapping for entertainment’ industry, along with Videogames, back in 2002! Ultime Realite came out, what a year or 2 ago? If gaining world wide media attention and being in every magazine from Playboy to Marie Clare, countless radio shows, TV features and news segments, a reality show deal, and a CSI: Miami episode based on our co. (2003) is low budget, then I guess we define success somewhat differently. I’m willing to bet that the simple, minimalist nature of our website, a mere blog, was all it took for you to peg us as “low budget” without even naming us. Let me inform you, we are featured in COLLEGE TEXT BOOKS…that means we impacted culture. Among those that pay for such services, they call us FIRST, as do many in the UK. “Low budget” indeed.